In this Mobihealth News essay, I consider virtual care in gastroenterology.

Early in the pandemic, gastroenterologists were the 2nd leading adopters of virtual care. Now that stay-at-home orders have long expired, most GI practices have little incentive to provide care away from the office, and even less incentive to use virtual tools to reshape care fundamentally. Today, GI care is back to being delivered almost entirely in person.

Enter a group of virtual care upstarts with entirely different incentives. One group aims to fill the gaps in traditional GI care by addressing psychosocial factors, diet, self-management, and remote monitoring. Because they do not provide direct medical management, their key clinical challenge is integrating with local GI practices.

The other group includes virtual-first providers aiming to diagnose and manage GI conditions remotely. Lacking legacy baggage, they are designing care to be more consumer-friendly, efficient, and even effective. One of their key challenges is defining the right segments to serve. Virtual-first may not be a good fit for those with complex GI conditions who account for the bulk of total spending.

Though I know gastroenterology best, I believe these core issues are relevant across various clinical disciplines.

“Distance is not the opposite of presence: absence is.”